Nikita Dragovich

Nikita Dragovich (10 August 1914-26 February 1968) was a Major-General of the Soviet Army during the Cold War. Dragovich was a high-ranking Soviet general who was the leader of Project Nova, a classified effort by the Soviet government to release Nova 6 poison gas into every American state captial with the help of communist sleeper cells. Dragovich's plans were foiled when the US Navy launched an assault on his numbers station on the ship Rusalka in the Gulf of Mexico and destroyed his underwater numbers station.

Rise to prominence
Nikita Dragovich was born in Tsaritsyn, Astrakhan Governorate, Russian Empire (now Volgograd, Russia) on 10 August 1914. Dragovich served in the Red Army during World War II, fighting at the bloody Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. In 1945, he was given command of Operation Olympus, in which the Soviets stormed a German stronghold in the Arctic Circle and captured the Nazi scientist Friedrich Steiner, who was recruited by the Soviets to develop the Nova 6 weapon. In 1959, Dragovich received Communist Party of the Soviet Union approval for the use of Nova 6 in first strike capacity in the event of a war with the United States, and he climbed through the ranks of the Soviet Army to become a Major-General.

Project Nova
In 1961, Dragovich secured an alliance with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and was allowed to establish a numbers station at an underground submarine supply post in the Gulf of Mexico, a part of "Project Nova". Dragovich planned to use this station to broadcast messages to communist sleeper agents in the USA so that they could activate Nova 6 canisters in every US state capital, which would cripple the USA's defensive abilities in the case of war. Dragovich survived a CIA assassination attempt at Baikonur in 1963, and he would set up sleeper cells around America in the following years; his cells were believed to have succeeded in assassinating John F. Kennedy in November 1963. By 1968, his operation was ready to go, as the Soviets had successfully tested chemical weapons at Rebirth Island and against locals in Laos. In February 1968, the CIA and US Navy located his numbers station on the Rusalka and launched an assault on the ship and the underwater numbers station underneath it. Mason confronted Dragovich and ridiculed him for attempting to brainwash him, proceeding to choke him and drown him as the station was flooded with sea water.